sixthiterationlogs | you know the rules and so do I

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you know the rules and so do I

WHO: Marian Hawke
WHERE: Multiple places!
WHEN: Anywhere between December 10-19thish
OPEN TO: Filters to Iron Bull, Frank Castle, Finnick Odair, Elektra Natchios, and then OTA!
WARNINGS: Swearing. Updated: Sex in the Connor thread.

FOR BULL

Hawke likes a lot of things about being there. For one, she always feels useful. For two, she doesn't have to be in charge. For three, she gets to meet all kinds of people. For four, some of them are people she already wanted to get to know better. It's very easy to volunteer to partner up with Bull during patrols, as he is simply marvelous company and it is occasionally nice to spend time with someone from her own world. Less people to question phrases or terms she says. Varric was right about Bull being someone their group would have liked.

"So I got Wicked Grace decks out of no where the other day, I was thinking of teaching people how to play." She has her bow slung over her shoulder. "Also my official bow, but it was broken up into a set. It shouldn't be that hard to put it together with some help."

FOR FINNICK

Hawke gets it in her head to go check in on Annie, the first person she met in this odd place, after seeing some of the native birds and thinking of those adorable little geese. Also to let her know a bit about the extra meat just brought in, in case she wanted any. It wasn't too hard to ask around and describe the woman enough to get directions, and that's how she ended up at the Windemere house.

Her dark hair is braided and her bow is left behind for now, peering around. "Oi, Annie, you around here, love?" She didn't know that she'd be meeting a different member of the family altogether.

FOR FRANK

Hawke found a reasonable set of gloves that worked with her bow, although they would never be as good as gloves that were specifically designed for an archer. But they were tolerable. Which is good, because Hawke goes out in the field enough to need it for when everything is colder. She picked up some other warm things to get by, but she found that they're simply not cutting it on her latest patrols and scouting. She heard around that Frank was the man to see about getting some warmer things without having to share them with everyone else, so she got directions to his place.

It was day time and cold, but sunny at least. She was sans bow and arrows since that was only necessary when she planned on using them. Hawke knocks on the door.

FOR ELEKTRA

Hawke is delighted to find several gifts waiting for her one morning, including beloved daggers and decks of Wicked Grace. The daggers however she simply has to immediately show off, even if it'll take a bit before she can come up with a good harness or set of sheaths for her back. She has a particularly chipper skip to her step today, wandering into the village to see who she could catch. She spots a familiar dark head from not too far away.

"Elektra!" Hawke gets warm fuzzies whenever she sees people she has good memories with. She has this gut feeling that Elektra would approve of these finely crafted matching daggers. "Look at what was randomly delivered to me over night!"

OPEN TO ALL

Hawke is someone easy to spot and meet around the village. She has lunch at the inn every day and will chatter at anyone there. She as usual can be found at the fountain here and there in case someone shows up, but she is now working on her sewing instead of creating arrows. She sometimes has some mischief and bathes nude in the hot springs. It gets cold out there! She's shameless. Finally she just generally scouts around the perimeter of the village, especially at night, with her knives and bow. She is very friendly. Just say hi. Or run while you can.

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Hawke really can't imagine another system than what they've got set up. She's heard people mumble about going a different way, but without offering any other way to do things. If they were led by someone awful, maybe then they'd have to do something about it, but so far everything was alright. She is genuinely intrigued by what he was saying. "It sounds a bit more civilized, to be sure."

She tilts her head at the question, not understanding right away what he means. "Oh, fighting to the death? Well I did try the diplomatic solution first. But the person in question tried to take over my city and killed a lot of our people. He wanted to kill her too, and that just wasn't going to work out." Hawke has no qualms with killing when it comes down to it. It's how she lived to fight another day. "Once I killed him, his group were true to their word and left us alone. Honestly that's one of the better end results than you can usually expect in Kirkwall."

He meant just killing people in general, but he's too polite to ask so directly. No doubt he's heard stories about people and met a few of them himself that he's caught himself thinking the world would probably be better off without them, but it's almost always inevitably followed by a pang of guilt that he shouldn't think that way about anyone.

"I'd like to think I don't have it in me," he says quietly, trying not to sound too judgmental. "Lately I've had conflicted thoughts about this, but where there's room for change... people should deserve a second chance."

Oh she gets it now. Does killing bother her? No, not at all. Hawke is well aware that she's not supposed to talk about killing people so easily, because it makes her come off as a psychopath, but she has many times just said 'who do I have to kill to solve this problem' out loud. Uh oh. She also comes from a place where it'd be stranger not to see things that way, so she's been adjusting her mentality with that in mind. She tries to think and see it from that angle.

She decides to go with stark honesty. "I used to think it would be nice if my siblings didn't have to kill or fear death all the time, but it didn't turn out that way. My brother died in front of me when he was still a teenager, beaten to death, protecting our mother. I wasn't fast enough to save him." Carver. So bold and mouthy and died in a horrible, brutal fashion.

"My mother was murdered by a serial killer who cut her into pieces and built a monstrous creature made out of her and a few other women because they resembled his dead wife. He made me fight her. I wasn't fast enough to save her either." That one hurt a little more, as it still stews in her memory. That sort of failure can fracture a mind let alone a heart.

"My ex-lover blew up the chantry, a religious organization in our city, killing people to set off a civil war that partially destroyed my city. I don't know the number of deaths that resulted in, but it rippled throughout the nation. I wasn't able to stop him." This one really and truly stung, her most grievous of mistakes and failures. Hawke thought about it every single day. What could she have done? Everything, honestly. Everything.

"Anyway," she says, snapping back to focus on him. "I have it in me because that's only three examples of the type of violence I lived with every day, before I died saving others. I know it must sound terrible, and it is. It really is. But second chances are the types of things people get in a civilized society."

Edited 2019-01-02 23:08 (UTC)

As it turns out, Matt might not be able to see, but he can sit still and listen just fine. He's well aware that he has it better than just about anyone else who has had any sort of serious accident, that everything had come out in roughly the best possible scenario that he could hope for, but he never really thought of the time and place he was born in as a privilege.

Pursing his lips and ducking his head, he tallies up her losses silently and his soft, unfocused eyes trail upwards towards the ceiling before settling down somewhere through or behind her.

"Do you carry these things with you?" he asks softly, tilting his head. For a fleeting moment she could be forgiven for thinking he somehow manages to make eye contact. It's a fluke and it doesn't last before his eyes drift again.

"You should give yourself a second chance. Forgive yourself. Doing what you do, it's... not about the people you let down. It's about the people who have more time because of you." Matt trails his fingertips over his calloused knuckles. It's taken him years to even start to reconcile this, to understand that God's calling is about the sirens that he responded to, not beating himself up over missing the sirens he was too broken and tired to get up for and slept through.

The question throws her off, and the suggestion even more so. Hawke is made of scars, once cut open and often crudely healed over. She carries all of her mistakes with her, in body, in mind, in soul. "They're a part of me, I can't stop carrying them. No one else can carry them for me." Her friends tried, and she used to let them try. When they were a team, they could share a burden, but at the end of the day she was the Champion. She was responsible for the city and for each of them.

"I wouldn't know how to forgive myself if I tried," she admits after a long few seconds of thought. It would be much easier to laugh this off or uncomfortably change the subject. Maybe it's the fact he can't see her that it helps. Hawke wears a mask of smiles, and sometimes they are genuine, and sometimes they're simply exhausted and forced. Now her smile fades and her weariness remains.

"I was supposed to save my city, and I helped destroy it instead. I let my feelings get in the way of my common sense." Something she almost never was stupid enough to do. She fell in love, like an idiot, and thought things could get better, like a colossal fool. "They were counting on me, and I failed. There isn't forgiveness for that."

It almost sounds like he's talking to himself there. And really there's nothing he can say at this point that wouldn't be hypocritical. When he's rational everything will go smoothly, but he's also quick to anger, and when he's riding his rollercoaster out he doesn't even know what rational means. All he hears and tastes and smells is just red, red, red.

"This is... kind of, your second chance. I suppose." Matt flashes a tight-lipped smile in her direction and follows it up with a small shrug. "I guess I'm just-... saying that you can't change what's happened. You can learn from it, but it doesn't have to haunt everything you do from here on out."

"Second chance at a life, that's for sure. I'm dead now, can't go back there, at least not voluntarily." Hawke may have a lot of guilt and sadness but she loves being alive. She chose to die out of nobility and bravery, but if she could live through it, of course she'd pick that! "I'm less likely to fail this village. There's not too many people and currently they're not all trying to kill each other. So that helps."

Hawke isn't in a leadership position either. She isn't sure anyone is 'the leader' in this place, she's guessing not or it'd already be obvious. It was more of a community effort. She hunts and provides humor, and that's it. No more champion of anything. "It's a nice thought, love, but being haunted is how I don't make the same mistakes" She taps his hand affectionately. "Sorry to just throw all my problems at you. You're sweet to tolerate it."

He doesn't ask how she knows she's dead. She's young. It seems traumatic enough without bringing it up again. For everything that's happened, she seems to be in a better place now. How she can get through her life here day to day is what matters in the end.

"Hey it's-... better me than hitting the bottle. Or someone else. Right?" He's no priest nor does he have an unending pool of patience to draw from, but he'd like to think that he's approachable for this sort of thing. Matt smiles warmly and lowers his head a bit. What's left of his food has gone cold but it's the last thing on his mind right now.

"I haven't punched anyone else in far too long, outside of sparing. I'm practically a pacifist now." Hawke isn't in the habit of fighting for no good reason, but she keeps in shape regardless. No sense in letting her guard down entirely. He really is a lovely creature at heart, she can tell that much. She wonders how he met Elektra, who is more like Hawke than like him.

"You did tell me a bit about your mother, which I imagine is still fresh for you, so perhaps I thought we bonded enough to throw drama at you." She much prefers being her chipper self. "Do feel free to throw it back. I am likely the least judgmental person you'll meet, unless you kill children and kick dogs, which will not go over well." Hawke is telling the truth. You can't be judgmental when all your friends are fighters and thieves. When you yourself are a rogue.

In his experience you don't really get a choice to give up fighting or not. Either you let someone get the better of you or those you are trying to protect, or the fight's done with you and you can't even get up without every muscle and bone screaming in protest anymore. If she's found a way to retire he's all ears, but more often than not he feels like stopping isn't an option.

"I haven't been up to any of that. I promise. If anything it's just-..." Matt breathes in a deep sigh. "Relationship struggles that you wouldn't be interested in." Granted, not everyone's been through the same things they had and gotten undead ninjas involved.

Retirement was never in the cards for her. It was fight until she died, and that was exactly what happened. She picked the time and the how, in the end. They were in an emergency situation and it was all of them or just her. A very easy choice. Hawke doesn't know what to make of a life without violence. It feels wrong to her, but she truly is trying.

She smiles faintly. "Matt, I just told you my ex is a terrorist. I've also been moderately long term involved with a beautiful but complicated pirate who also nearly got our city destroyed. Really my love life might be the greatest threat to it." She can joke about it, yep. It's difficult not to, over something that ridiculous. "I've had a lot of relationship struggles, if you want to talk it's the least I can do after drama vomiting all over you a moment ago."

That might all be true, but Matt knows that you can be fairly oblivious to these things when you're in love. He's defended Elektra until he's lost his voice despite knowing full well what she's like.

"I'm not the man she met." To put it plainly. "It was a long time ago and... a lot of things have changed. A lot of things did change when I got here. And... And I was still getting over losing her when she showed up at the inn. I felt her die. And we're trying to make it work like none of it happened, trying to go back to how it was, but. I don't want a caretaker. I want her back, before everything happened." And he knows that's not possible. Not in his current state. But he still entertains fantasies of being blissfully ignorant and stupidly happy.

"If we leave this place I'm going to lose her. Again."

Hawke listens. She already suspects he's talking about Elektra from observation earlier in their conversation, but she's not going to let her own thoughts on Elektra get in the way. Everyone has their shit. This is Matt expressing his. She is listening to him right now, with her full attention.

"I doubt she would consider herself your caretaker." Because it wasn't a very attractive concept. "Have you thought about not going backward, but forward? Not trying to be who you were before, because you've both changed and that's how life goes, but finding out the people you are now." Hawke thinks there's no point to trying to hold onto the past forever. She may still blame the things from the past on her, but that's to learn lessons. Not get in the way of love. "If you change together, and put all your shite on the table, it could work."

That last bit though. That is a very real fear. "You could, and that's terrible, but so is not having her with you when this is your only chance."

"But I'm a lesser man now than I was before," Matt insists. He can't see how any of this is supposed to be some sort of 'blessing in disguise'. It isn't. It's just miserable and dependent and vulnerable. The fact might be that he's not that college boy anymore - and she's not that college girl either - but that was better than people trying to kill them, than having moved on and dealing with courtroom shenanigans during the day and people who just won't die during the night.

But even those days that never seemed to end were better than now, stuck in this place bumbling around in the dark. He's so frustrated with himself he could drown in his own self-loathing.

"I want to be happy that I have her now. But I can't think to be anything remotely close to happy."

"I don't know who you were before, darling, but I very much like the you of now." Hawke pats him affectionately on the hand, because she does still keep people's boundaries in mind. She's the type to hang all over her friends, but it takes time before that level of comfort. "But I do know that everyone telling you that won't help much if you still feel like that on the inside." She has many demons of her own, some of which he had context for now from their discussion. Self-loathing is not a new concept to her.

"It sounds like you might need some space to figure out your own struggles right now. It's difficult to love someone else if you don't like yourself. It was one of the problems Anders and I had, outside of the whole, you know, terrorism." Hawke very, very rarely speaks this directly about her past relationship, as in never, but she's giving him a little out of respect. "He had a good deal of self-loathing to contend with, enough he wallowed it and that hate turned outward." Hawke waves a hand. "Not that I think you'd do that, of course, but I'm saying, you have to find a way to be at peace with who you are now."

He seems a little surprised by that even though he probably shouldn't be. The him of now is the only version of himself that Hawke knows, so she doesn't have the same frame of reference as anyone else from his life back in New York might. And yet he doesn't get the sense of being seen as a burden or that she pities him.

"Yeah. I think you might be right." She's been caring, forthcoming and earnest. It helps put Matt at ease even if it does encourage him to be more reflective which is not always good for him. He might not like who he is right now but this is all he's got so at some point he has to come to terms with it and make do.

"Hey, um. Thanks for your help." His tight-lipped smile might suggest he appreciates it.

"I'm always right. Except for all the times I'm very wrong." Hawke smiles and pats him on the back affectionately. "Alright, I must be off, so I'll come annoy you another time. You'll do find with that gift, you're almost there."

[cool with a wrap?]

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